


4 Minutes

by Aftersilence



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Fluff, TTYCT, comeback era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 07:10:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16363259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aftersilence/pseuds/Aftersilence
Summary: Can you change the world in 4 minutes?Two conversations set to the same song.





	4 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this tweet  
> https://twitter.com/SS_VirtueMoir/status/1050121185969594368?s=19  
> And then this fic happened. 
> 
> Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Shoutout to everyone going to the TYCT shows and filming ridiculously high quality videos of full performances. You are all the real MVPs.
> 
> Also to im_ridiculous, for saying encouraging and kind things despite me being a random twitter stranger. All the wonderful supportive women looking out for each other make me so happy to be part of this fandom.

**September, 2015.**

 

They were on their way home from the rink when it happened. In hindsight, Tessa wondered if maybe it was a bit anticlimactic, like, maybe there should have been a bigger build-up? Bigger setting. Or something. It FELT big, but also it felt too big for the moment it happened in.  
The conversation had been on the cards for a while though, ever since their trip to China which had been cathartic in more ways than one. They had talked, properly, for the first time in over a year. And while a lot of (really big) questions had gone unanswered, they both felt like they had cleared the air on a lot of things. Like how Scott felt about her, and the other woman in his life.

***

 

“Kaitlyn’s great,” he had said as they leaned against the Great Wall, looking out across the mountains. “But she’s all in, and she deserves to be with someone that can offer her the same commitment.”  
At this, Tessa had looked at him, frowning. She liked Kaitlyn, he knew that, and he suspected that she was about to tell him off for not treating her properly.

“Tess.” He cut her off, turning to face her fully, and whatever she had been about to say died on her tongue.

“You and I both know that part of me is always going to belong to you. I’m always going to love you, I’m going to be holding out for you until my dying day, and it isn’t fair to Kaitlyn to string her along like I have been. It’s as simple as that. Now can we talk about something that isn’t giving my mother increasing reason to believe that I’m going to end up a weird old hermit?”

Sensing his need to lighten the mood, and needing to ignore the big part of her brain that was reeling at Scott’s casual announcement that he would always love her, Tessa offered weakly “Better not talk about skating either then.”

He’d laughed, and taken her hand lightly in his, turning back to look out across the mountains again.

“Do you ever…” He’d started weakly, then drawn a big breath, like whatever he was about to say was bigger than professing his undying love for her.  
“Do you ever think about…” He’d trailed off, but Tessa, in a flash of insight that can only come from spending 18 years knowing someone (despite the last 18 broken, desperate months) said

“PyeongChang?” His fingers had twitched where they held hers, and she knew she was on the money.

“Yeah.” He breathed it out. 

“Do you want…” She started but couldn’t continue, staring at him intently as he still refused to make eye contact with her.

“Yeah.” His hand gripped hers tightly, his voice rough. Tessa took a deep, shaky breath. They weren’t in a good enough place to make this decision now, but they were on the same page. It was a start.

She turned, pulling him with her, ready to start back down the track.  
“Come on then, let’s keep moving. That’s enough of a break.” Her words hung in the sudden silence between them, the double meaning unavoidable, but it was a lighter silence. They were getting there.

 

***

 

Scott was flicking through radio stations as he drove them back to their air bnb from the rink, one hand on the wheel and the other mashing at the preset channels. They were in Montreal for the week to choreograph What’s Love with Marie-France and Patrice, and the joy that working with their two idols was bringing them was carrying off-ice, making for a fun week. Scott couldn’t help but wonder if it would be like this all the time, if they did what they were both still too cautious to say aloud.  
  
“Oooh, stop here I love this one!” Tess reached out as though to pull his hand away from the radio if he tried to change the station, unknowingly pulling him from his thoughts.

Scott groaned as he realised what it was. “T this song is so old! And so daggy!” 

Tessa twisted in her car seat to look at Scott incredulously. “Old?! We’d just won our first national title when this song came out! I remember it being on the radio constantly. How old does that make us? Actually – don’t answer that.”

Scott exhaled a chuckle as he saw Tessa’s nose scrunch up as she realised how long ago their first Canadian title was. He suddenly felt very tired.

Fotrunately, Tessa was not to be distracted from his other comment. “Anyway, this song isn’t daggy. Listen to the beat in it, it’s edgy but also still fluid.  And it’s fun to sing!” She sat up straighter, and lifted her water bottle to her mouth like a microphone.  
“We’ve only got four minutes to change the world!”

At this, Scott let out a bark of laughter.  
“T! It’s SAVE the world! Not change the world! You cannot possibly argue the merits of this song when you don’t even know the words!”

Tessa pouted. “Pssht. Change the world sounds better.” She waited for a beat, but the song was finishing, and she knew she wouldn’t get a chance to sing the chorus through again. Undeterred, she sang over the ad that had now started on the radio.  
“We only got four minutes to change the wooooorld!”

Scott laughed again. “Yep, you’ve got a point, it definitely sounds better your way.”

“Scott Moir are you mocking me?” Tessa laughed with him and he tried to avoid thinking about what that sound did to him.  
She continued after a beat. “Anyway, do you reckon you could even save the world in four minutes? That seems so unrealistic! Even James Bond takes two hours!”

“No more unrealistic than changing it in four minutes!” Scott replied, still chuckling.

“It’s the length of a free dance,” Said Tessa glibly, shrugging one shoulder.

A deafening silence followed. Tessa, who had intended her comment to be off-the-cuff, wondered if she was ready for the conversation that she had suddenly initiated. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again when she couldn’t work out what to say.

Next thing she knew, Scott was pulling the car over into a parking space outside a small shopping strip.  
“Can you…can you put that song on again?” He said, fumbling in the centre console for the aux cord. Tessa, thankful for something to do with her hands, reached into her bag for her phone and immediately started scrolling through Spotify. She plugged the phone into the end of the cord that Scott held out for her and pressed play, and they sat in silence as Madonna and Justin Timberlake sang.

 

_If you want it_  
_You already got it_  
_If you thought it_  
_It better be what you want_  
_If you feel it_  
_It must be real just_  
_Say the word and_  
_I'm a give you what you want_

 

As the bridge transitioned into the chorus, Scott frantically spun the volume button and they were plunged into silence. Scott turned abruptly to Tessa, whose heart was pounding out of her chest, terrified of what was about to happen.

“Do you feel it?” He asked, not clarifying what he was referring to. He didn’t need to, Tessa thought.

_(It must be real.)_

“Yes.” She forced herself to meet his eyes.

“Have you thought it?” He didn’t break his stare.  

_(It better be what you want…)_

“Yes.”

This time, he took a breath. “Do you want it?”

_(You already got it…)_  
  
Tessa felt a calm wash over her. “Yes.”

Scott took a shaky breath in, closing his eyes for a second as though to gather his thoughts and Tessa took the opportunity to speak, finally finding the words.

“All of it, Scott. I’m all in.”

She had echoed his words from the top of the Great Wall, and his eyes flew open. His expression was filled with so much love and so much hope that it stole her breath. She wondered briefly if he was about to grab her and kiss her, in his car outside a laundromat at midday on a Tuesday. He didn’t, a fact for which she was thankful. This moment was already too big. Instead, he took both her hands in his and stared at her, wordlessly.

“Let’s change the world, Scott, the only way we know how to. Four minutes at a time.”

 

The following day, as they sat down to spreadsheets and calendars and started talking about logistics, (was this even possible? Had they left their run too late?) he turned to her.

“We should use Four Minutes as a free. You were right, it’s edgy.”

Tessa laughed, unsure how serious he was being. “I’m not sure Skate Canada are ready for that. I think it’s too edgy for competition. I’m not even sure how it would work as an ex piece, it’s all sharp movements, not gliding. Not exactly suited to ice dance.”

Scott shook his head. “T, if anyone can make it work, it’d be you. And we said we wanted to change the sport. Shake it up. But you’re probably right. We’ll find a different song to change the world to.”

 

 

**May, 2018**

 

“Honey, I’m home!” Scott bellowed down the hallway from her front door, a loud thunk indicating his gym bag had just hit the floor. He flinched at the noise it made, knowing how much Tessa loved her polished wooden floors.

“In here!” Tessa called from the dining room where she sat at the table, surrounded by paperwork and her laptop, hair in its characteristic messy bun now with the addition of a biro stabbed through the middle.

“How’s it going?” Scott moved to stand behind her, massaging her shoulders and dropping a kiss onto the top of her head.

Tessa rolled her shoulders back into his hands and groaned.  
“There is so much more to planning a tour than we thought. Most of it’s covered…but I still think there’s something missing.”

Scott sat down next to her and started glancing over her paperwork.  
“I told you I’d take care of half this stuff while you’re at barre later, you don’t have to do it all. But tell me what you mean by missing.”

Tessa sighed. “I don’t know…but we said we’d create something extraordinary and I’m not sure we’ve quite…”

“Nailed it?” Scott asked with a grin. Tessa laughed.

“Exactly.”

“Okay.” Scott sat back in his chair with a thoughtful look on his face. “What would you do, if you could do ANYTHING. I mean it, no limits. You want to trapeze onto the ice? Have a magician release doves into the audience? Ice dancing dogs? I reckon we could find that, you know. I saw this dog on YouTube the other day that can skateboard. It’s not so far removed.”

By this time Tessa was crying with laughter, her exhaustion evaporating in the face of his silliness.

“I did think of one thing, but it’s almost as crazy as using a trapeze.”

Scott leaned forward, staring into her eyes like he could read the answer in them. “Less crazy than ice dancing dogs?”

Tessa bit her lip. “Off ice dancing. Like, drop a dance floor onto the ice, come out in sneakers.”

Scott flinched as though he’d been punched.  “T…”

“I know! I know. It’s just...it would really be something different, you know? It would be breaking new ground. And Sam’s videos get SUCH big responses when he posts clips of us dancing.” She sighed, looking down at her hands where they rested on the table and twisting her ring. Scott’s level of comfort on the ice was only matched by his discomfort off it. It had taken him so long to feel comfortable with Sam, to really be able to let loose and feel the movement in the new styles that they had been incorporating into their programs, and she knew he was still self-conscious about how he looked dancing next to her. 

Scott reached across and tipped her chin up so he could make eye contact with her.  
“I’ll think on it, okay? I’m sorry I can’t immediately say yes, but it’s not off the table.”

Tessa’s eyes lit up, even as she tried to maintain a poker face.  
“Really?”

“Yeah, T. The world needs to see how incredible you are off the ice as well as on it. And let’s be real, they’d probably all be watching you the whole time anyway. You’re captivating.”

“Thanks, baby.”  Tessa smiled and blushed a little before standing up. “Okay, I’d better go. Movie when I get home?”

“You bet. Stirfry sound good for dinner?”

“Sounds amazing! I’ll be starving.”

They smiled at each other, Tessa feeling a little bubble of joy growing inside her at this achingly domestic moment that she hadn’t been sure they would ever get with each other.

“Okay, go! Don’t be late for your class.” Scott swatted her bum as she went to walk past him, and she spun around, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him in for a quick kiss, laughing as she pulled back and danced down the corridor to grab her things for barre.

 

Two hours later it was Tessa’s turn to shout down the hallway as she came in the front door, kicking her shoes off and dropping her bag to the floor (gentler than Scott had earlier, it had to be said).  

Scott emerged from the living room, TV remote in his hand.  
“Watching TV and slacking off, while I’m out sweating my butt off?” Tessa joked, hands on hips.

Scott laughed. “You won’t be saying that when you see the movie I’ve picked. And dinner’s ready to go, it just needs to go in the wok. It’ll be ten minutes from whenever you’re ready. You wanna shower or anything?”

Tessa headed slowly down the hallway towards him, eyes narrowing. “What movie did you pick?” She ducked under his outstretched arm where he had anticipated a hug, and veered straight into the living room.

“Scott Moir. Step Up?! You are too good to me.” She giggled, brushing a hand across his torso where he still stood motionless in the hallway, and he closed his arms around her tightly.  
“Eurgh, Scott, I’m all sweaty.”

“Don’t care. Love you anyway,” came his mumbled reply from where he had his head buried in the juncture of her neck and shoulder.  Tessa’s wave of contentment grew some more, and she wondered, not for the first time, if it was even possible to feel this happy all the time.

 

Two hours later saw them settled on the couch, their dinner dishes stacked in the dishwasher and two glasses of wine on the coffee table in front of them. Tessa was curled into Scott’s side, as they watched Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan dance their way into their future.

“This is what I’d love to do,” Tessa murmured, a lazy hand gesturing at the screen.  

“Yeah? During the tour?” Scott shifted his weight to pay closer attention to what was happening on screen.

“Yeah. The way they dance together, the hybrid of her ballet and his street dance…and here, watch right here - ” Tessa sat up to point at the TV as the music changed.  
“The break in the music here, the break is essentially there for them to show off to each other. I mean, yeah, okay, it’s for the musicians to show off their skills, but it’s also for the dancers. It’s in pretty much every style of music. Sometimes it’s a guitar solo, but when it’s just a drum or a bass, it’s a perfect place to work in, like, complicated footwork, or spins, anything to impress your partner.”

She looked across at Scott to find he wasn’t watching the TV, but was watching her, a smile forming on the corners of his mouth.  

“You should see yourself, T. When you talk about this…your whole face lights up.”

Tessa bit her lip to try and hide her smile. “Sure that’s not just when I look at you?”

Scott laughed. “You’re cute. But no. Not even I get this level of vibrant from you. You really wanna do this, hey?”  
She nodded, her gaze shifting down.

Scott shrugged, helplessly. “I’m not sure I can dance like that for four minutes…I assume you’re thinking the same length as a free?”

“You need to stop putting yourself down, baby. You’re an amazing dancer and I’m honoured I get to dance with you every day. You know that. But yeah, four minutes. It’s not such a long time, really.”

Scott suddenly had a flash of a memory, and before he could stop himself, he turned to fully face Tessa, a mischievous smirk on his face.  
“It’s long enough to change the world.”

Tessa gaped at him, speechless that he’s remembered, and not sure whether to laugh at his teasing her misheard lyrics or ask if he’s crazy. Before she can find the words to do either, he speaks again.

“You said it wouldn’t work on ice…here’s our chance to do it anyway.”  

In a flash Tessa saw it clearly, and her heart started to race. The stage, the music, and the moves. She and Scott, circling around each other to a heavy beat, quick and light footwork that was only possible without blades. A lift? Definitely a canon. Maybe at the beginning. She drew a shaky breath.

“Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s dance off ice to Four Minutes. But only if you’re sure.”

Scott whooped and leapt off the couch, a show of enthusiasm that she knew was both forced and primarily for her benefit.

“We only got four minutes to change the tour!”  
She laughed as he scooped her up and spun her around the room and as she felt a rush of gratefulness that he was willing to do this for her, it felt like the last piece of the puzzle dropping into place.

 

 

Five months later, as they circled around each other to the opening beats of Four Minutes in an ice rink in Abbotsford, she grinned at Scott (though she hadn’t really stopped, for MONTHS now) and despite his sheer terror about this program, he grinned brilliantly back at her. The constant joy had not gone away, and she was finally starting to believe it was there to stay.  


End file.
